I’m of the (pretty common) opinion that there has never been (and will never again be) a better time for music than the 90’s and early 00’s. This was a time when pop songs were actually fun and full of life and not afraid to be catchy. This was a time when *NSYNC stole my teenage girl heart. This was a time that brought us female power in the form of the Spice Girls, family power in the form of Hanson, and, of course, a shitload of GOOD music.

The artists today are too serious, as is this entire world. Maybe I’m seeing it that way because I’m an adult or whatever but still, the pop music today blows in comparison to when I was younger. Also, technology kind of took the excitement out of music. It’s great to stream songs and what not but there was something special about catching your favorite song on the radio, or your favorite band on TRL. Also, social media has made it far too easy to know what musicians are eating for breakfast. There’s no mystery to any of it anymore and I miss that.

It’s sad that this generation of teens will never get to fully experience the wonder of hearing Sisqo’s “Thong Song” on the radio for the first time. Or taking sides as to whose boy it really was in Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine”. Or dancing (awkwardly) to the sweet reggae-infused sounds of Tanto Metro & Devonte’s “Everyone Falls in Love” at EVERY school dance. Oh to be young and awkward. Anyways, here’s a list of some songs from the time that are AMAZING yet I completely forgot existed.

Enjoy!

Cher “Song For The Lonely”: Oh man. This chorus. Such a brilliant jam for us singletons. 100% forgot about this one. I’m glad I re-discovered it.

Candlebox “Far Behind”: I FREAKING LOVE 90’S POP/ROCK MUSIC OMG!!!!!

Paula Cole “Me”: An absolute stunner of a song that I didn’t listen to nearly as many times as I should’ve when it was actually released. I owned This Fire, the album this song came from, but focused more on the singles at the time (“I Don’t Want to Wait”, “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?”)

Los Umbrellos “No Tengo Dinero”: Holy throwback. This recent re-discovery made me very happy. Also, I remembered every single word (even though I have no idea what I’m saying or if I’m even saying it right.)

Sugar Ray “Falls Apart”: Of course I remembered “Fly” and even “Every Morning”, but I totally let this jam slide from my memory. Just a fun band that released fun songs.

Snoop Dogg/Justin Timberlake/Charlie Wilson “Signs”: Ya gotta love the Dogg. This was a total jam that should definitely be brought back into dance clubs today. If people still go to those. I don’t know – I’m thirty.

Son By Four “A Puro Dolor”: Wow. So, this time period was when a lot of Latin artists were entering the pop scene. Hello, Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias and Marc Anthony. Anyways, there was a big focus on artists releasing songs in both Spanish and English and this particular one hit wonder was a HUUUUGGGGEEE hit at the time. I like the Spanish version better.

JC Chasez’s Schizophrenic: I admit it – I wasn’t a huge fan of this album at the time because I was heartbroken over the break-up of *NSYNC. Also, JC was my favorite of the group and I always loved his crystal clear voice that was MILES better than every other member (sorry not sorry). That said, I was used to JC belting it out on beautiful ballads, so when I heard “Some Girls Dance With Women” and “Blowin Me Up (With Her Love)”, the singles from this album, I was NOT happy. I thought he was trying to be someone he wasn’t. It was all too sexual for me at the time (he says “horny” in one of the songs and I was a late bloomer…), although I still liked a handful of the songs. Anyways, I listened to the majority of this album the other night and, yeah, me being upset over *NSYNC’s break-up was definitely the issue, not the music, because this album was underrated and actually pretty damn good.

Avril Lavigne as a pop artist in general. Yea, so I obviously didn’t forget about Avril but what I did forget was how good her songs were. Her entire Let Go album was exceptional and I had it on replay for a very long time. One song I did forget about though was “Don’t Tell Me” and it’s the one I chose to highlight here.